EAST STROUDSBURG — More than 50 people gathered at Dansbury Park on Wednesday to remember a slain member of the East Stroudsburg Crime Watch on the day that would have been his 22nd birthday.

Michael Goucher was a captain in the neighborhood watch and a U.S. Army veteran who dreamed of one day becoming a police officer. He was stabbed to death almost three months ago in Price Township.

"These are people Mike helped," Will Searfoss, Goucher's uncle and a Crime Watch member, said before the ceremony. "It means a lot for this many people to come out to remember Mike and what an great person he was."

During the ceremony, the borough of East Stroudsburg and Stroud Area Regional Police officially retired the radio call sign Goucher used to communicate with police dispatchers. No Crime Watch members will ever be assigned his call sign, CW-4-1, said East Stroudsburg Mayor Armand Martinelli.

Goucher was known to friends as "Mike on a bike" during his Crime Watch patrol days because of his bicycle patrols, said Wanda Lasher of Crime Watch, who knew him since he was 14.

"All of us know how valuable Mike was to our group," she said during the ceremony. "I'm going to miss that guy on the bike."

After the ceremony a procession of 19 cars and trucks, led by a police escort, made a final Crime Watch patrol in Goucher's memory. His bicycle sat in the bed of his uncle's truck at the front of the line.

"We all carry Crime Watch ID badges," Searfoss said. "I always wear his ID with mine now. He was my partner on patrol and he will always be on patrol with me."

Two Cresco-area teens are in county jail, awaiting trial at Monroe County Court for Goucher's death. Shawn Freemore, 19, and Ian Seagraves, 17, are accused of killing Goucher on Feb. 3 after planning to lure him to a remote Price Township road and rob and kill him.